[...] heavy metal concerts [...] "the sensory equivalent of war".
Arnett(1996), Metalheads, page 14
Honestly? Same. That quote neatly captured all my preconceptions about heavy metal. Loud. Chaotic. Possibly dangerous. Like willingly throwing your ears into a blender.
And yet, there I was: Sunday morning, coffee in hand, casually dissecting heavy metal history over breakfast with my husband. Because I’d decided to actually learn something about the genre I’d mentally filed under "things that sound like an angry engine."
The night before, I fell into the Wikipedia wormhole (as one does) to get a basic lay of the land. Metal: where did it come from, who started it, and why are there so many oddly specific subgenres?
What surprised me—shocked me, even—was discovering that heavy metal evolved from rock. Like, regular rock. At one point, even bands like Aerosmith and Bon Jovi were labelled “heavy metal.” Which is hilarious, because I like Aerosmith. That meant I’d already been dipping my toes into metal territory without even realising it. Accidental metalhead? Not quite. But still.
The genre itself started taking shape in the late 1960s and early '70s. The holy trinity of early metal: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. Felt smug when I realised I actually recognised all three—thank you, cultural osmosis. I even had a Black Sabbath CD back in my teenage years (burned, obviously, courtesy of a neighbour with a sketchy stack of unlabelled discs). It was Paranoid, of course. The classic of classics.
So that’s where I’m starting. A reluctant toe-dip into the riff-filled waters of metal, beginning with the album that once lived in my teenage bedroom drawer next to eyeliner and teenage angst.
Cue Paranoid. Let’s see where this goes.